2019 - 2020

0811-1035-01
  Rituals in Jewish Religious Law: Textual and Performative Viewpoints                                 
FACULTY OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS
Yair LipshitzMexico - Arts212Mon1400-1800 Sem  1
 
 
University credit hours:  4.0

Course description

The seminar will explore the ways in which Jewish ritual and halachic praxis can be analyzed through various performance and theatre theories. We will focus on Yom Kippur as a textual and performative case study, and trace the various enactments of this day’s rituals in Jewish societies throughout history, with an emphasis on rabbinic literature. Alongside the study of Yom Kippur, we will examine several theatre and performance pieces that reactivate, unsettle or disrupt Jewish ritual practice, and ask how the ritual syntax charges theatre with meaning. We will get acquainted with theories regarding the links between theatre and ritual (historiographical, anthropological, and phenomenological) and inquire how they shed light on the complex relations between art and religion in our contemporary culture.

The sessions will combine theoretical and practical research, and will partly take place in collaboration with Prof. Ishay Rosen-Zvi and the students of the department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud, in order to create a productive conversation between the two disciplines.

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